$5 million for the Opportunity Scholarship program and Adult Completion Scholarships.

Development of more online CTE classes, and increased support for our six regional Workforce Training Centers.

Battelle Energy Alliance, which just won a new five-year management contract that will ensure welcome stability in lab operations. Coming soon is the next stage in developing small modular reactor technology that could be the future of nuclear energy.”

Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds

$37M in STEM programs.

The Future Ready Iowa Act will help people of all ages get the skills they need for a rewarding career.

New scholarship for a two-year degree in a high-demand fields.

New grant program for people who need to complete a 4 year program.

$1M to expand the apprenticeship program to assist small and medium businesses.

Wyoming is out of the gate early in 2018 with economic growth planning. This is one of the first stories of momentum in 2018. Lead by states that have put several years into dedicated long-term planning and can effectively engage their legislatures for state-level funding. The next race is for 2018 Federal dollars and that race has already begun several years ago with states getting repeated grants for the development of innovation ecosystems and cluster development. Those states are also seeming to fair better in winning the development of federal research labs and the research grants that support them long term.

Wyoming: Governor Matt Mead

Has prioritized diversification strategies to grow the state’s economy by funding $1M to form ENDOW (Economically Needed Diversity Options for Wyoming) was created late in 2016, as a dedicated team that built plan and the request for $37M plan for 2018-2019 (receiving $36M)

$36M in statewide programs to support tech-based development, which includes:

$6M million for Research and Innovation Fund that provides matching funds as a way to leverage federal R&D opportunities

$15M to expand the commercial air service

$10M to improve the state’s access to broadband

$5M to develop a new organization called Startup:Wyoming, which would administer a Fund and provide support to entrepreneurs throughout the state.

Other areas of recommendations outside the funding above include:

$20M in seed money for the Startup:Wyoming Fund to invest in promising technology startups and to attract startups from other states.

STEM & Computer Science for higher education prep.

Research and development in high-growth, high-potential industries, such as block chain, vertical takeoff and landing technology, and wind energy.

I attended the Greater MSP annual event hosted at the Ordway Theatre. The event was widely attended and featured several songs by the St. Paul Orchestra. A host of speakers shared updates on their initiatives throughout the evening. After the presentation, there was food and networking. The comments after the event were most interesting.

Some of the common post meeting viewpoints included:

Seems like most of the initiatives are lead and implemented by corporate or 3rd party stakeholders and it is was unclear what value GMSP was adding.

Given the vast number of sponsors and size of board, it is surprising to see such tactical initiatives in general that primary benefit only a few organizations.

Now in its sixth year, GMSP is starting to work on an organizational strategy for themselves. Raises the question how much longer will they be funded?

There is no vision or long-term plan for regional development anywhere much less near what competitive regions are doing around the world to aspire.

Seems like industry needs to drive regional development more.

I thought the event was well executed and was surprised by the after event conversations from people who have been to many of the events or more involved in the initiatives. This was my first year attending, though I have been watching the organization for some time. Perhaps next years event will demonstrate a much more strategic approach to regional development or see a broader industry cluster start to drive economic development for the state as a whole.